Walter Marsh

Night — and a Gentleman Burglar — at the Museum

One minute you're writing a book at your desk in Adelaide, the next it's in The New York Times.

The Butterfly Thief is out now in the USA 🇺🇸 scribepublications.com/books/the-butterfly-thief

nytimes.com/2025/11/19/books/review/the-butterfly-theif-walter-marsh.html

Cover of “The Butterfly Thief” by Walter Marsh

Hugely enjoyed @waltermarsh.bsky.social’s “The Butterfly Thief” - both a gobsmacking story of entomological skullduggery and a sobering reflection on museums’ role in the extractive work of empire.

Cheers Patrick 🙏

‘They’re not wolves – they’re sheep’: the psychiatrist who spent decades meeting and studying lone-actor mass killers Paul E Mullen has had a front-row seat to the men behind some of the worst public massacres. He says it’s possible to ‘disrupt the script’ for future violence

‘They’re not wolves – they’re sheep’: the psychiatrist who spent decades meeting and studying lone-actor mass killers

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...

@waltermarsh.bsky.social true crime caper 'The Butterfly Thief' pieces together several mid-century museum thefts that shook Australia’s leading natural history institutions... My review is available at Foreword Reviews: shorturl.at/SHhnh.

UK PUBLICATION DAY 🇬🇧

A year ago I went to London to visit some grand, old, complicated museums, and track down some big pieces of the puzzle that become my second book #TheButterflyThief 🦋

A year later, pretty much to the day, it’s out now: scribepublications.co.uk/books/the-butterfly-thief

📚 REVIEW: In his rollicking scientific true-crime, The Butterfly Thief, Walter Marsh delves into the dark side of museum collection histories – and one bizarre heist.

👉 theconversation.com/theft-l...

‘Smash, grab, melt it down’: how material value likely motivated the Louvre heist Experts say thieves would struggle to find a buyer if the stolen goods remained intact

“This is a horrible time to be a museum.”
Once well-funded and well-guarded, museums and galleries all over the world are faring worse than the fancy-brand jewellery shops that have no role fostering national heritage and contemporary culture. A wake-up call.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

Free lesson in museum theft management courtesy of my new book The Butterfly Thief (spoiler: they still got robbed)

Police focus on ladder placed against the side of the Louvre Andrew Harding Paris correspondent, at the scene

Sorry but this is the funniest headline I will read all year

Tarnanthi turns 10: how a small South Australian festival became a super-sized champion of First Nations art This year’s edition, a statewide juggernaut spanning more than 30 exhibitions and events and a major show at the Art Gallery of South Australia, celebrates the past and present while looking to the future Walking through the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) alongside Nici Cumpston, it’s as if the Barkandji artist and curator is surrounded by old friends. For the past 10 years, Cumpston’s role as artistic director of Tarnanthi festival of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art – which this week celebrates a decade with a supersized statewide iteration spanning more than 30 exhibitions and events, including a major exhibition at AGSA – has seen her travel widely and listen deeply to bring these canvases, sculptures and video works to Kaurna country. Continue reading...

Tarnanthi turns 10: how a small South Australian festival became a super-sized champion of First Nations art

‘Harvest of loot’: the colonial legacies of South Australia’s Benin Bronzes - News | InDaily, Inside South Australia In an exclusive book extract, InReview editor Walter Marsh explores how a group of bronze sculptures behind glass at the South Australian Museum reveals a complex story of British imperialism, a South...

A group of bronze sculptures behind glass at the South Australian Museum reveals a complex story of British imperialism, a South Australian governor, and the hidden slavery connections of an Adelaide Hills dynasty.

Another extract from my new book:
www.indailysa.com.au/news/in-dept...

Great read, had never clocked the Grace Jones connection 🌨️

The Butterfly Thief It was inevitable that George Lyell and Gustavus Athol Waterhouse would become friends, despite all appearances. Lyell lived in the Victorian town of Gisborne, had never got beyond high school and was a partner in a dairy machinery factory. Waterhouse had haunted the Australian Museum since attending prestigious Sydney Grammar next door and graduated with first-class honours in geology and palaeontology. There were 11 years between them.

In 1947, 800 butterfly specimens were quietly stolen from Australian museums by a British socialite. Walter Marsh’s ‘The Butterfly Thief’ uncovers a story of obsession, betrayal and friendship in a story it’s surprising isn’t better known. satpa.pe/9ATiKCF

The great butterfly heist: how a gentleman collector stole thousands of butterflies from Australian museums Scientists are still unravelling the thefts of Colin Wyatt, an English adventurer, artist and naturalist who charmed the entomological community

The great butterfly heist: how a gentleman collector stole thousands of butterflies from Australian museums

Trent Dalton, Bri Lee and Melissa Leong’s ‘raw’ memoir: the best Australian books out in October Each month Guardian Australia editors and critics pick the upcoming titles they have devoured – or can’t wait to get their hands on * Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email Fiction, Simon & Schuster, $34.99 Continue reading...

Trent Dalton, Bri Lee and Melissa Leong’s ‘raw’ memoir: the best Australian books out in October

The fluke that exposed Australia’s greatest museum heist A chance discovery rocked the world of natural science: more than 3000 rare butterfly specimens had vanished from Australia’s most prestigious museums.

The fluke that exposed Australia’s greatest museum heist — extract from my new book in this weekend’s Fin Review:

www.afr.com/life-and-lux...

My second book, The Butterfly Thief, is out today — cracking open the complicated world of natural history museums, and the gentleman collector who left them scrambling 🦋

Net it in the wild at your local bookshop or order online: scribepublications.com.au/books/the-bu...

Shrinking casts, diminished reach, less ambition: the arts in Australia needs more than just tax reform | Eamon Flack The real goal of arts policy shouldn’t be to keep organisations solvent – it needs to keep each artform alive for the next generation, writes Belvoir St theatre’s artistic director

"The real goal of arts policy shouldn’t be to keep organisations solvent; it needs to keep each artform alive for the next generation. Artistic talent doesn’t spontaneously come to fruition [...] [it] is passed down from the generation before." theguardian.com/culture/2025...

Walter Marsh – The Butterfly Thief – Gleebooks.com.au

Sydney book launch, Tues September 30 @ Gleebooks, in conversation with Helen Sullivan 🦋🍷

Tickos: gleebooks.com.au/event/walter...

Charlie Kirk, Redeemed: A Political Class Finds Its Lost Cause By ignoring the rhetoric and actions of the Turning Point USA founder, pundits and politicians are sanitizing his legacy.

Ta-Nehasi Coates is doing a lot of things with this essay, but one of the most important is fearlessly using examples of anti-trans hate to describe Charlie Kirk's politics.

The contrast between his choices and those of other writers for major legacy outlets is revealing.

(He also thanked the giant media empire his father ran so there’s my pinch of salt)

Reflecting on the history of @meanjin.bsky.social — back in 1949 our teenage comrade Rupert Murdoch published his own lit mag and credited Meanjin (and its founder/his Geelong Grammar teacher Clem Christensen) for making it possible. It was the first thing he ever published.

The end of Meanjin after 85 years is as sad as it is infuriating | Ben Walter MUP says it is ‘no longer viable’ to make the literary magazine – but almost none of them are financially viable. That’s not their purpose or value

Here's me in Guardian Australia on the total debacle with Meanjin.

www.theguardian.com/books/commen...

Current MUP chair Warren Bebbinton was also Vice Chancellor at the University of Adelaide when it cut off support for Australia’s first and oldest community radio station in 2015 (Radio Adelaide was gutted and barely limps on today).

‘Literature should make us question things’: Hossein Asgari grapples with memory and grief in Desolation - InReview | InDaily, Inside South Australia After his debut novel was unexpectedly shortlisted for the Miles Franklin, Adelaide-based author Hossein Asgari’s follow-up Desolation explores how memory, grief and acts of violence shape the stories...

“Maybe that’s what literature can do – it helps us understand, and maybe even forgive.”

Great profile of Hossein Asgari, whose debut novel was passed on by a dozen publishers, then got shortlisted for the Miles Franklin. His follow up, Desolation, is out now:

www.indailysa.com.au/inreview/boo...

FWIW everyone knows how bad it is but if state and federal governments go out there saying it's a catastrophic disaster, the state will suffer economically when it still needs people to visit. SA is not a rich place and is taking a hit. We will see more of these tensions in the future, I'm sure.

An aside: journalism exists in an attention economy where demand drives editorial decision making. If you find something you enjoyed, learned from and that moved you, share and share widely -- even four days late. I, and others, don't get to keep doing this stuff if no one reads it.

The barriers keeping Adelaide musicians off the stage - InReview | InDaily, Inside South Australia A government-backed industry showcase’s failure to accommodate emerging artist Nat Luna has stoked a bigger conversation about accessibility.

And considered the accessibility of our live scene while profiling the excellent Nat Luna and Sarah Footner: www.indailysa.com.au/inreview/mus...

‘I would never give up the process’: Lonelyspeck’s world of experimental, Pasifikafuturist pop - InReview | InDaily, Inside South Australia Feted by Troye Sivan, Charli xcx, and Bring Me The Horizon, Adelaide-based producer Sione Teumohenga has resurfaced with their long-awaited debut album – and the culmination of over a decade of pop ex...

Covered @lonelyspeck.bsky.social’s debut LP: www.indailysa.com.au/inreview/mus...